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25040Venturebeat.comLebanon’s Game Cooks studio launches PolyBlast mobile arcade gamehttp://venturebeat.com/2015/10/15/lebanons-game-cooks-studio-launches-polyblast-mobile-arcade-game/
http://venturebeat.com/2015/10/15/lebanons-game-cooks-studio-launches-polyblast-mobile-arcade-game/#respondThu, 15 Oct 2015 12:00:16 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1822171EXCLUSIVE: PolyBlast, a mobile arcade-puzzle game from a rare game studio in Lebanon, is debuting on the app stores today. That’s no small achievement as PolyBlast comes from one of the unlikeliest places for game development in the world. It is the latest entry into mobile games from Game Cooks, which was started by two brothers in […]
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EXCLUSIVE:

PolyBlast, a mobile arcade-puzzle game from a rare game studio in Lebanon, is debuting on the app stores today. That’s no small achievement as PolyBlast comes from one of the unlikeliest places for game development in the world. It is the latest entry into mobile games from Game Cooks, which was started by two brothers in Beirut four years ago.

Above: PolyBlast

Image Credit: Game Cooks

Game Cooks is proof that game companies can sprout anywhere, even in some of the toughest conditions for businesses in the world. Beirut has had its share of turmoil over the years, but Game Cooks has prospered, growing to more than 20 employees and contractors, even with limited funding.

“It was one of the hardest things in the world to start a game company in Lebanon,” said Lebnan Nadar, the cofounder of Game Cooks, in an interview in San Francisco with GamesBeat. “The game community is very small.”

Above: PolyBlast

Image Credit: Game Cooks

The title is debuting today on Google Play and iOS. The game had a lot of retention in a test in the Lebanese market, said Nadar.

I had a look at PolyBlast, and it has addictive qualities. These geometric shapes descend on you, Tetris-style. You have three blasters to shoot the shapes before they fall to the bottom of the screen. You have to tap the screen and time your shots so that they hit the targets at just the right time. The challenges get harder and harder as you proceed, testing your precision and agility. It’s simple but takes calculated planning. If you hit five targets in a row, you get a five-second frenzy mode with unlimited shots.

You can play PolyBlast in single-player or multiplayer, with six worlds at 15 levels each and one “supreme world.” In multiplayer, two people play with the same device, shooting at each other in a test of reflexes.

Nadar and his brother, Arz Nader, started the company in 2012. They taught themselves how to make games using tools such as Unity and Cocos2D.

Now they have a collection of artists, designers, and developers who all share a love of gaming. Their hope is to create feel-good adventure games for the global game market. The company has 14 games published to date, including Planet Nam Nam, Run for Peace, and now PolyBlast.

“We had a couple of games with really good success in the region,” Nadar said. “We make sure we get a gamer and then teach them to become a developer. The hardest thing is to find a trained game designer in Lebanon.”

Game Cooks survived by taking on other tasks, such as creating a program that synchronized all the odds in a sports-betting game.

There isn’t much company for Game Cooks in Lebanon. One fellow studio in Beirut is Wixel Studios, which is working on a game to help kids fight cancer.

The environment in Beirut is tough, with intermittent power and Internet access, as well as the occasional gun battles. Yet Game Cooks has found some people with ideas to make games.

Once Game Cooks was successful, it opened a way to take ideas from others and incubate their ideas into games. PolyBlast is the result of this unusual process. Game Cooks teamed up with former Lebanese telecom minister Nicolas Sehnaoui, a veteran geek and gamer. He had an idea for the game for years, and Game Cooks put a team to work turning it into reality.

]]>http://venturebeat.com/2015/10/15/lebanons-game-cooks-studio-launches-polyblast-mobile-arcade-game/feed/01822171Lebanon’s Game Cooks studio launches PolyBlast mobile arcade gameFacebook: growing fast in the middle east and Africa, with plenty more opportunity (infographic)http://venturebeat.com/2012/12/07/facebook-growing-fast-in-the-middle-east-and-africa-with-plenty-more-opportunity-infographic/
http://venturebeat.com/2012/12/07/facebook-growing-fast-in-the-middle-east-and-africa-with-plenty-more-opportunity-infographic/#respondFri, 07 Dec 2012 23:21:05 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=586401Facebook might have almost fully penetrated core markets such as the U.S. and Europe, two regions in which the world's largest social network's growth is slowing. But there's still plenty of room to grow in the MENA regions: the Middle East and North Africa countries.
]]>Facebook might have almost fully penetrated core markets such as the U.S. and Europe, two regions in which the world’s largest social network’s growth is slowing. But there’s still plenty of room to grow in the MENA regions: the Middle East and North Africa countries.

And Facebook is growing rapidly in that part of the world with a population of about 400-500 million people: 29 percent growth in 2012, according to a new infographic from Socialbakers.

The “Arab Spring” popular uprisings in 2011 and 2012 contributed to that growth, according to Socialbakers — particularly in the most politically active countries, Qatar, Libya, and Iraq. Those three countries’s Facebook user numbers have soared in 2012, 115 percent, 86 percent, and 81 percent respectively. Facebook, along with YouTube and Twitter, helped protesters organize and collaborate during the popular uprisings in those countries.

Egypt, the most populous country in the region, grew the most by absolute measures, adding 2.5 million Facebook users.

It’s not profitable growth, at least not comparatively, and not yet: Facebook users in MENA countries are some of the least valuable users as far as advertisers are concerned. But that will likely change over time.

One oddity that I noticed in the infographic: Israel is missing from the map. In a variety of sources that I checked, Israel is included in the MENA countries in some cases but not all. It does seem strange, however, that Palestine, Jordan, Egypt, and Lebanon are shown on the map, but Israel is not.

]]>http://venturebeat.com/2012/12/07/facebook-growing-fast-in-the-middle-east-and-africa-with-plenty-more-opportunity-infographic/feed/0586401Facebook: growing fast in the middle east and Africa, with plenty more opportunity (infographic)These two tools determine if you have the Gauss virushttp://venturebeat.com/2012/08/10/gauss-detection-tool/
http://venturebeat.com/2012/08/10/gauss-detection-tool/#respondFri, 10 Aug 2012 23:38:47 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=507171Researchers at security firms Kaspersky Lab and Crysys Lab released tools today to detect if your computer is infected by the Gauss virus, a piece of malware that focuses on stealing bank account login credentials.
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Researchers at security firms Kaspersky Lab and Crysys Lab released tools today to detect if your computer is infected by the Gauss virus, a piece of malware that focuses on stealing bank account login credentials.

Gauss was discovered yesterday by Kaspersky Lab, and its function is to steal access credentials to Lebanese banks. These include the Bank of Beirut, BlomBank, EBLF, ByblosBank, Credit Libanais, and FransaBank. It also steals information for Citibank and PayPal. On top of that, the malware grabs browser history, cookies, passwords, system configurations, and more. Researchers have not been able to get much information about the builders themselves, as the command and control servers were shut down, leaving the malware in limbo.

Gauss is related to a number of high-profile viruses including Stuxnet, which became famous after attacking nuclear plants in Iran in 2010, and its sister malware, Duqu. It is also related to the recently infamous Flame, which has been referred to as a major advancement in cyberespionage.

Gauss and Flame are closer together in relation. Kaspersky says the two share nearly identical features and were built off of the same code base. The firm says Stuxnet’s creators probably worked closely with those of Gauss and may have even shared source code.